User talk:Distantlycharmed
--From Andoria with Love 20:52, 10 May 2008 (UTC) Removing Information Hi, Distantlycharmed. Just letting you know if you're going to remove information, such as quotes, from pages, you should provide a reason in the edit summary. Otherwise such removal will likely be reverted. Thanks, Cleanse 02:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC) Preview Button Hello. If it would be possible, please use the "Preview Button" when editing before you save. It prevents strain on the database and cuts down on the entries on the "Recent Changes" page. Thanks!! ----[[User:Mainphramephreak| Willie]][[User Talk:Mainphramephreak| LLAP]] 02:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC) :I would like to reiterate what Willie asked you several days ago. Please make use of the the "Show preview" button located to the immediate right of the "Save page" button. Proofread your changes, then press "Save page." Also, if you are going to make changes to more than one section, feel free to edit the whole page rather than just the individual sections one at a time. It is also customary to leave a quick note about what you changed in the "Summary:" line located just above the "Save page" button. Thanks :) – Topher 04:37, 28 May 2008 (UTC) Picard quote Please stop changing the Picard quote. The current one was arrived at after a great deal of long discussion, one which specifically dismissed the quote you have selected as not being wanted by the community. Again, read the old discussion, and respond to it. Certainly do not continue changing it when there has barely been any new discussion, and absolutely no consensus on a change for a quote that was accepted by the community for the approval of a featured article. You are risking its featured status with these changes. --OuroborosCobra talk 19:05, 16 August 2008 (UTC) Internal links and random spaces Hi there, I noticed you edited the article by taking out the link to Captain and replacing it with Captain Janeway. I have reverted this because a user who is reading the article may want to go to the Captain article but cannot when it simply goes to the Kathryn Janeway article. If you include the links like this: Captain Janeway then the user has the option of going to both articles. See Memory Alpha:Build the web for more information. Thanks. -- TrekFan 18:13, 20 August 2008 (UTC) In addition, I have just corrected some random spaces in between paragraphs and random new lines in the middle of sentences on the aforementioned article. Can you explain why you put these in there? -- TrekFan 18:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC) Spaces ::Moved from User talk:TrekFan Hey TF, well I put bigger spaces between paragraphs mostly because visually it is easier to read and more appealing. Leaving only one space bar between paragraphs just makes the summary page look cluttered and as if it was just one solid block of text - which can be discouraging. So I really believe leaving more space in between paragraphs makes accessing and reading the page and information contained within it more appealing and 'cleaner" if you so will. The spaces I leave are, therefore, really not "random". Imagine you read a newspaper article or a paper or even an email and everything is jammed into one or two tight paragraphs. Makes you not wanna approach it - it is kind of overwhelming. Anyway, hope that makes sense. – Distantlycharmed 21:42, 20 August 2008 (UTC) : I know what you mean, but the MA standard is to just have the one space in between paragraphs, not four or five. And what was with the new lines in the middle of sentences? I saw that a lot throughout the article. If you want to edit on MA, you need to follow the policies and guidelines. -- TrekFan 21:47, 20 August 2008 (UTC) Well I am not gonna get into another debate over the rigidity of the system here. MA guidelines should make sense and be re-evaluated, especially when someone has an idea for improvement. Spacing paragraphs more widely makes the pages look more appealing, cleaner and crisp ( I didnt do 5 by the way, only 2). If you don't think it is worth re-evaluating (whatever authority you have to make that judgment) and just want to point out to rules again, so be it. Apparently since I dont have a "blue" account my suggestions are also not taken seriously. Oh well. I also am not sure what you mean with the new lines in the middle of a sentence. I use IE at home for editing and ever since MA changed, the edit page looks weird and freezes often. So that might just have been a random error. – Distantlycharmed 23:36, 20 August 2008 (UTC) : When did I say I don't take you seriously because you have a "red link"? You have used this excuse before when nobody has been saying anything of the sort against you. All you need to do is have a good read of the MA guidelines and these debates can be avoided. By the way, if you simply added something to your user page, your name wouldn't appear red, not that it has any impact on my opinion of a user. -- TrekFan 23:50, 20 August 2008 (UTC) Look everytime something is slightly changed or improved, I hear the same "refer to MA rules" standard response and get dismissed - as if the MA guidelines were the ten commandments that couldnt possibly be changed. When someone has a suggestion then the correct way is to assess it and give arguments for or against the suggested change before making a decision. And yes it was another user under the Picard Quote debate who said he is annoyed that every now and then someone with a "red" account who has seen a few episodes comes in and wants to change things. True, it wasn't you, but I got this feeling that there simply is no felxibility here or room for allowing for input and suggestions.– Distantlycharmed 00:57, 21 August 2008 (UTC) :There is 'flexibility' and 'room for suggestions'. You just have to go about doing it within the scope of the rules of MA. Any organisation/project/group needs rules by which to follow or there would be chaos. Stick to the rules and you will be OK. Before making any major changes, just discuss it on the talk page first - that's what it's there for. In some cases, people have spent hours on an article and it's not fair when someone comes along and deletes/changes something that in fairness should could been kept, or at least discussed. Also, when you are using talk pages (such as this user talk page), remember that the person intiating the conversation doesn't need to indent. Only people who join conversations indent and everytime someone does they indent +1. That way it makes it clear a different person is speaking. -- TrekFan 01:06, 21 August 2008 (UTC) I am not going to initiate a principles debate everytime I add a period or comma to a section. I have not changed the structure of anything around here, merely increased paragraph spacing in order to make the text visually appealing. That's all. I dont disagree with having rules, but some people seem to see themselves as the ultimate authority on this, dumping on others everytime an improvement is suggested. You cannot seriously believe that attempting to clean up a section that looks cluttered otherwise is a bad idea. Anyway dont worry, I will not increase the paragraph spacing from now on, god forbid. – Distantlycharmed 03:42, 21 August 2008 (UTC) ::Sorry for using your talk page for this, TrekFan - perhaps you might want to think about moving this whole discussion to Distantlycharmed's talk page, where it all started. ::Anyway, commenting on what was said above: Yes, guidelines should make sense, and might need to be reevaluated every once in a while. However, the guideline to create paragraphs by adding one blank line does make sense. Technically, every additional blank line just adds unnecessary formatting to the HTML source of a page. The correct way to achieve a different spacing between paragraphs would be to use CSS - something you can do for yourself, if you want, and we'd even help you with that if you just asked. This would also have the advantage of changing all pages to that new format, and not just the one page among nearly 30,000 that you happened to edit. Doing it that way doesn't really make sense, does it? ::On a more general level, you complained, more than once, that you're not allowed to "suggest improvements". This is simply not true - you are. However, keep in mind that this site has been active for nearly five years now. So, not everything you might think of as an "improvement" really is one, or even is a new idea for that matter. Also keep in mind that "suggesting" does not equal "simply changing it on one page or another" - that just makes the site inconsistent. If you really want to suggest, do so by opening up a discussion somewhere. -- Cid Highwind 10:33, 21 August 2008 (UTC) :Thanks for jumping in there Cid. I don't think Distantly understands what we are trying to tell him. Distantly, basically, just open up a discussion on talk page BEFORE you go making any major changes. That's all we ask. I am now moving this to Distantly's talk page. -- TrekFan 13:19, 21 August 2008 (UTC) Just for the record, I am not a him guys, I am a she. Also, Cid, thank you, I appreciate finally someone explaining this. Honestly, I dont know what CSS is - so I couldnt have asked for it in the first place. All this time i thought you just go into edit and make a change. I am not a programmer or too familiar with html. And I didnt think that was a requirement for this anyway. A plus, yes, but not a requirement. But I appreciate the suggestion and honestly, if someone had suggested this in the first place we probably wouldnt be having this long debate. I also didnt consider adding one extra line of space to a page a "major change" that needs a debate. Frankly the page looks better with more spacing and if there is any way to change that, so that pages look neater and more clear-cut that'd be great. – Distantlycharmed 16:41, 21 August 2008 (UTC) ::Hi again. CSS, in short, is a standard way to add formatting to webpages. HTML, the language to describe webpages, works by "marking" individual parts of a text with tags - there are tags for section headers, boxes, paragraphs, etc. CSS can then be used to tell the browser how to display each of those elements. ::I added a CSS file to your user space here: User:Distantlycharmed/monaco.css. The instruction I added to that file should lead to a bigger space between paragraphs (you migth need to clear your browsers cache for that) - if it is not enough, you might want to try changing the specified "2em" to something bigger, like for example "3em". ::If you have further questions regarding CSS or policies/guidelines of this wiki in general, don't hesitate to ask. :) -- Cid Highwind 17:20, 21 August 2008 (UTC) :::The point isn't "you should have asked for CSS change", the point is that a dicussion of your attitude toward the standard would have been more fruitful, more effective and less disruptive than just chucking your own style into random articles. --TribbleFurSuit 19:07, 28 September 2008 (UTC) Attitude, personal opinions and MA guidelines and etiquete Hi, just noticed your post on the talk page of Seven of Nine. Talk:Seven_of_Nine#Identity_crises Wow, ok, geeze, look that is not what a talk page is for. A talk page is to discuss certain facts on the page in question. Like whether or not certain things should be added or to clear up confusion or whatever. But to go on a rant like you did in which you bash a very well liked character is absolutely not what it is for. Go to a forum to discuss stuff like that, that's what they're for. Not a talk page. MA is not meant to express the personal opinions of its users, this is an online ST encyclopedia. It just gives a bad impression if someone goes on a talk page of a character and finds rants like that on them. What about people who do like the character? They don't wanna go on a page of their fav characters and find hateful opinions like that, would you? This is a good way to start a serious online argument and even incite vandalism to the page. Therefore you shouldn't do it. So in the future please refrain from expressing your opinion on talk pages. It is your right to dislike the character, but such negative comments are not meant to be on MA. People do not come here to read your personal opinion on a character. Further more, from reading your talk page and the great many complaints on it on what is apparently very disruptive editing on your part, I feel the need to warn you that edits like these are in violation with the behavioral and etiquette guidelines on MA. I'm not saying this to attack you, far from it. I don't doubt that you've done some good work on MA too, I'm saying this to help you improve your future edits here so that you can make a more useful contribution. But I do warn that your behavior on the Talk page of Seven of Nine is not acceptable. So don't do it again or you will end up being reported to an admin and then there will be some consequences that no one will be happy with. Don't let it come to that, ok. I hope you take this advice to heart and that it makes you a better user in the future. --Marjolijn 10:11, 20 October 2008 (CET) Talk pages Please do not blank talk page discussions. --OuroborosCobra talk 05:15, 17 November 2008 (UTC) :You made that comment almost a month ago, if you wanted to have it not there you shouldn't have waited a month. In addition, you deleted someone else's comment as well. 31dot had replied to you. Lastly, we have a policy on talk pages, , which says not to delete content in the manner you did. --OuroborosCobra talk 07:39, 17 November 2008 (UTC) :Just removing your own comment doesn't work either. 31dot wasn't replying to dead air, he was replying to you. Not to mention it still violates the policy. --OuroborosCobra talk 07:44, 17 November 2008 (UTC) ::Or, I'll just do neither, since as you pointed out the talk page is not long enough to archive, your comment wasn't a personal attack, etc. You don't just get to pick and choose, not after waiting a whole month. It's not like warnings about taking care in submitting aren't right above the "save page" button whenever you make an edit, including talk pages. --OuroborosCobra talk 08:30, 17 November 2008 (UTC)